VSSome cultures consider that care and prevention are intertwined and inseparable approaches. Traditional medicines combine the treatment of existing conditions with the maintenance of general well-being balanced by preventive measures. In our French culture, this is not the case, where the notions of care and prevention have long been disjointed, as embodies the Constitution of 1946 guaranteeing the protection of health through accessibility to care. Among doctors, there is also an unconscious and implicit hierarchy between the one who treats but does not warn and the one who warns but does not prescribe.
This observation is not limited to doctors, but to places of care in general. Until now, primary prevention was carried out in dedicated entities, such as primary care teams, health centers, prevention and occupational health services. Public and private hospitals, designed and financed to offer care requiring advanced technicality and expertise, found themselves excluded from primary prevention. These establishments have positioned themselves on secondary prevention actions, in the case of early diagnosis, to promote a return to a life as normal as possible after the onset of an illness. And, recently, an opportunity to act has opened up to make our hospitals places where care and prevention become one, following in the footsteps of a few avant-gardists.
specific skills
Certainly, the lack of resources experienced every day by our healthcare services, battered by absenteeism, symptomatic of a system in pain, can appear to be a limit. Indeed, prevention is seen as additional work in a context where the very achievement of the care mission is sometimes undermined.
However, there is a model that makes it possible to break down barriers between stakeholders and restore a global dimension to health pathways. The approach developed across the Channel, based on the principle that each contact with a health professional is an opportunity to create time for prevention (Making Every Contact Count), illustrates this ambition. Based on the acquisition of specific skills, each healthcare professional is an actor who identifies, directs and – if necessary – intervenes according to the identified risk factors. Furthermore, this same model could be used to improve the health status of caregivers, an objective currently supported by the government. Indeed, health professionals can find themselves both actors and subjects of prevention, particularly on questions of lifestyle habits (physical activity, sleep, diet, addiction, etc.), and thus become ambassadors to their surroundings.
You have 50% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.